Drowning in Amber
by s1ncer1ty
Summary: A tide of great despair and sickness overwhelms Pippin after Gandalf falls into shadow, and it takes unexpected counsel for him to realize that he is not the only one grieving. (Chapter 3/3, complete!)
1. Quorin

"Drowning in Amber"  
by s1ncer1ty

Notes: This is what happens when Pippin takes the reigns to tell a story -- things become a little more surreal and much less straightforward. This starts out with a wallop of angst that does ease up somewhat in future chapters. No slash, unless you'd care to interpret it that way. I won't stop you. Mostly movie-ish, but probably not too far removed from the books.

Musical Inspiration: "In the End" by Linkin Park. After seeing the movie, I thought this song fit perfectly with the hobbits' reactions immediately following Gandalf's fall to darkness.

Disclaimer: Still not mine.

Chapter: 1/3

_~*~ Quorin : Peregrin : Moria ~*~_

_"I had to fall to lose it all.  
But in the end, it doesn't even matter."  
~ Linkin Park_

All is crystal. All is amber, melting in a suffocating stream, blurring my vision as it washes over me. All too soon, I find myself ensnared in the flow and held fast within its viscous web. Spiraling, sinking, I feel my entire being fast ensnared in the deluge of thick, biting tears. Are there hands upon my shoulders? It does not matter, for soon I shall be so far from rescue that none can reach me.

Every breath, torn hotly from an uncontrollably shaking chest, is white agony. A shadow crosses overtop my vision, crouches and converges into a tangible, luminous Elven face. I do not deserve to look upon such beauty. "Meriadoc, Peregrin, cast aside your grief. We walk." Although mere centimetres from my face, the muffled voice above barely reaches my ears, so deeply I've sunken.

It takes the greatest of will to force the blinding threads of amber from my eyes with the back of a hand, and I gasp in the desperate breath of one drowning and about to slip beneath the dark waters for the last time -– indeed, all I wish is to be left to sink in peace. The shadows will have none of that. I feel one pair of hands wrap about my shoulders and another intertwine with my fingers to wrench me from the blackness of an overwhelming despair.

"Come on, Pip. We've got to be going." As if in a dream, Merry's face swims before me, doubles in a fresh onslaught of sparkling pain.

"Leave me here," I manage to plead between numbed lips. "Please..."

"Stop it. Just stop it." He is angry now, poking my shoulder with more force than is necessary. "We're leaving, Pippin. Strider's orders."

More determined, I again shove wetness from my sight, breathing hard, painfully. The air in my lungs mixes wetly with amber, and I choke out a torrent of anguish. 

As I am bent double, excruciating coughs wracking my chest, Merry's hand slides across my back, and his voice softens. "Easy there, Pip. Easy."

"It hurts. God, but it hurts," I whisper, feeling the residue of amber in my sinuses and tasting it in the back of my throat still.

"I know. But now is not the time to be making yourself sick over it. We must _go."_

"I can't," I plead in vain. He will not let me go, not even to retreat into a purgatory of my own design.

"You must." Merry grasps the edge of my cloak at the base of my neck and tugs roughly. His harsh voice then softens somewhat at the edges. "Please, Pip... Gandalf would want you to continue."

Sudden, grief-filled anger rises within me at Merry's last statement, and I scrub dirty fingers across my eyes in a harsh motion. "How –- how would you know what he'd have wanted?"

"He'd want us to live--" he begins, but I interrupt him with a sharp cry.

"Fool of a Took! Throw yourself in the well and be no more of a bother to us!" I exclaim in a shrill mockery of some of the last words uttered to me by Gandalf. The eyes of the Fellowship turn to me, settle, and then move on in embarrassed silence.

Merry stares at me, jaw agape, and for a moment I sense that he might well strike me, such anger blazes within his eyes. But he does not raise a hand to strike, but instead to grasp my shoulder in a hard grip and to shove me along the path we must take.

"Walk, foolish hobbit. Walk."

"It's true, Merry," I whisper, taking those first, painful steps from a vast catacomb hive of a tomb, where a once-great wizard lay broken at the bottom of the chasm below Khazad-Dum.

"You know not of what you speak. _Walk."_

I walk. The miles wear on, and it is not the threat of Orcs that might follow in our wake but of Merry that spurs me ever onward. Though he does not appear so visibly, he is livid, a fact that escapes the attention of all but perhaps Samwise; yet he is himself too concerned with attending to a numbed and shivering Frodo to have a care. Bleakly, vaguely, I wonder if Frodo too feels the unceasing pull of an amber tide at his ankles...

Miles turn to days, days turn to aeons. I walk, but I cannot escape the dim threat of suffocating amber. It follows behind me in a thick ebb, flowing snakelike against my feet as if seeking the perfect opportunity to strike. But when it finally comes, countless kilometres down the rough path from Moria, it is not in an expected tidal wave but in a thick, bitterly cold cascade that washes atop my ankles and rises in a rapid torrent. Like a wretched wasp drowning in the tide of the Brandywine, I am caught uncontrollably in its snare.

"Merry?" I mumble softly, and through blurred eyes I see his back tense visibly.

"Pippin," Merry returns, not bothering to turn and face me. He is angry with me still.

"I think –- I have to stop walking now." The ground sways perilously, the amber flooding over the top of my feet, bringing frigid pain at every step.

"Don't start that again. I won't hear it." His words are strained with irritation, and also with thinly veiled misery.

The amber swirls about my ankles, pulling fast like spidersilk with every step. "Merry, I don't want to drown," I mumble as I sink deeper into the blackening mire.

"Pippin?"

Staggering now, I cannot fight much longer against the rapid riptide of thick amber, building against my stomach and my chest, tugging the neck of my cloak fast against my windpipe until I cannot breathe. With numbed horror, I realize that I may very well drown right before Merry's eyes. 

"Pippin! Hey, Pip!"

Merry's arms suddenly catch around my shoulders, struggling to hold me aloft in the sea of amber despair. I clutch desperately at the folds of his vest as my feet wash out from beneath me, and I feel myself beginning to tumble beneath the surface. My breath rattles harshly in my chest as I struggle for air.

"Hold on, Pip. We'll rest. I'll make them rest." Merry's voice rises sharply in pitch, cracking as he shouts for aid. "Strider! _Strider!"_

Shadows of faces circle above me, like scavenger gulls upon the Brandywine waiting to descend. Their words drift in and out with the pull of tide. 

_"...fever since we've left Moria..."_

_"...Mr. Pippin, can you hear..."_

_"...Orcs so close, we cannot afford..."_

_"...patrol the outskirts, so that the young hobbit may..."_

And at the center of it all, Merry gazes down upon me, his brows knitting together in dire concern, lips trembling as if he may weep. His hands pull easily through my hair, unhindered by the sticky damp of an amber flood.

"Oh, Pippin, why didn't you tell me sooner?" he whispers.

But I cannot answer, as the threads of amber have sealed together my lips, and all I can do is stare up at him and breathe what may well be my last few breaths, even as the world blurs, crystallizes, and finally pulls away beneath a cold blanket of darkness.

...tbc...


	2. Nienaite

"Drowning in Amber"  
by s1ncer1ty

Notes: Still no slash, unless that's how you wish to interpret it. Somewhat suggestive (mmm, nekkid Elves...) and somewhat angsty. Still from Pippin's weird, Tookish perspective.

Musical Inspiration: "All I Want" by Toad the Wet Sprocket. Primarily the first two lines quoted below, to describe Legolas.

Disclaimer: Still not mine.

Chapter: 2/3

_~*~ Nienaite : Legolas : Lothlorien ~*~_

_"Nothing's so loud as hearing when we lie.  
Truth is not kind, and you've said neither am I."  
~ Toad the Wet Sprocket_

A river runs through the centre of the wood, and I've stripped to nothing in Lorien, finding solace and solitude beneath the waterfall. I make no effort to shield the torrent of frigid water from my face, and it flows through my eyes and down my cheeks like a never-ending spill of tears. Silently, I can do no more than let the flood wash over me, feel it beating upon my head until it becomes less soothing and more torture. I cannot control the shivers that seize my back and prickle the hair on the backs on my arms and the tops of my feet.

As I sit shuddering, a sliver of light breaks through the clearing, taking shape in the lithe form of Legolas the Elf. Eyes like twin beads of cobalt reflect the brilliant light of day as they fixate upon my solitary form beneath the waterfall. He speaks not a word to me, but disrobes to fully bare, shimmering white skin and immolates himself in the depths of the river. The glory of the Elf's long form reaches me for but a second before I snap my gaze away to the rocks below, losing myself again in a melancholy world of my own design.

With the thunder of Lorien's waterfall crashing both around and overtop me, I dream of the green grass of the Shire, and of the warm waters of the Brandywine River where Merry and I had spent so much of our youth. I imagine laughter amid the catching of frogs, of leaping from the tallest rocks, of the breathless flush within Merry's cheeks every time he'd won a water battle between us. I dream until I am far, far away from Lothlorien, and far from the ache that continues to fester deep within my heart.

It is not until Legolas speaks my name that I realize he's come to sit beside me. I had not even heard his delicate approach, and as I turn my eyes to the light, I find myself rapt in a humourless face and eyes the colour of hard sapphires.

"Your fever has broken," he states.

"Yes," I whisper, and although I want to so desperately I cannot pull away from his penetrating gaze.

"Why must you do this to yourself, Peregrin?" he asks, voice soft in spite of the cold expression.

"Wh-what do you mean?" I stammer, shivering from the cold spill of water, or from remnants of the fever -- I know not which.

"It is not within a hobbit's nature to wallow in the depths of self-pity," he returns aloofly. "You will tell me what is on your mind."

"I should have heeded Elrond's advice and stayed behind," I mumble reluctantly as water cascades down my lips. "I wish I were back in the Shire. It would have been better that way."

The slender, white face of Legolas breaks into a lofty grin. "I dare say, young hobbit, that it's far too late to return to your Shire now. You have come too far, and the journey back would be wracked with infinitely more peril than that on the way here. You'd not make it to Moria, much less Rivendell -- or your Shire -- if you were to turn back now."

The defensiveness swells within me, yet I find no strength of will to fight it, or to let it rise to the surface. "And perhaps it would be best if I had been done in by the Orcs, or fallen into the abyss behind Gandalf."

"Who is to say, Peregrin? Perhaps, indeed, your Gandalf would still be with the party had you not foolishly pitched that stone into the well."

Beneath the swell of the waterfall, I feel the heat of sudden tears prickling in my eyes and spilling in a mingling flow down my cheeks. "You should have just left me behind after we left Moria. I begged Merry to let me be, but he would hear none of it."

"Then Merry is a kinder person than I would have been, for it dwelled within my thoughts to leave you there upon the rock."

I cannot look at Legolas, cannot face any disapproving expression or a wrinkle of annoyance between his brows. I can only weep weakly and wish that I had the strength to rise to my feet and either leave this place or dash myself beneath the surface of the water, never to surface again. I cover my eyes with a hand, and the spill from the waterfall washes down my forearm. "Why _didn't_ you leave me, then?" I finally manage to whisper.

"Because, Peregrin, we need you." The sudden kindness in his voice startles me from my circle of self-pity, and I blink the welling tears from my eyes.

"What did you say?" I choke out hoarsely, disbelieving.

Legolas shifts his lithe body closer to mine and places a soft hand upon my shoulder. "Indeed, it is in all likelihood that your stone alerted the Orcs to our presence. However, had you not thrown it in, I sense that we would have lost more than but one member of our Fellowship. Worse, the Ring might well have fallen into the hands of our foes."

"I -- I don't understand." I wipe my cheeks with the back of a hand, although I know it is useless beneath the cascade. When I meet his gaze, it is gently serious.

"Gandalf knew full well of the evil that lie buried deep within the core of Moria. I am surprised we weren't set upon sooner by the enemy. If it were not for your stone returning us to full alert, I believe the Orc attack -- which, whether you choose to believe it or not, was _inevitable_ -- would have taken us completely unknowing."

"I wish Gandalf were still with us, stone or no stone. If it were up to me, I would take it all back," I return stubbornly, the fierceness of my grief fading to a dull throb.

"You can never wind back to the past, but can merely look constantly forward, Peregrin," he whispers with the weight of over two thousand years of age upon his back. "For the future, I do hope that you've learned not to act quite so rashly." His gaze, though softer than his earlier admonishment, is still mildly reproachful, and I swallow past a large lump forming in the back of my throat.

"I have, Legolas. Oh, but I have."

His long-fingered Elf-hands lightly grasp the sides of my face with a feather's touch, and he tilts my head up so our gaze meets. For a long while, he holds me fast in a cold, blue stare, his face shielding mine from the spill of the waterfall. After what seems to be an eternity, Legolas releases me, apparently satisfied with whatever he seeks within my eyes. "You are truly sincere, Peregrin. For that I am grateful."

"If only Merry saw it that way. I still don't believe he's forgiven me," I remark, offhandedly, as Legolas pulls away.

The Elf stands and wades towards the shore, barely breaking a ripple within the water. His soft voice carries upon the wind as he walks; nevertheless, I pick my aching body upright and follow swiftly at his heels. "You look, but you do not see. Meriadoc has forgiven you, but he has not forgiven himself."

"Why must he do that? He's done nothing that would require forgiveness," I state, pushing wet clumps of hair from my eyes. "Why didn't he come to me if he were upset?"

Legolas arches an elegant brow, although not unkindly, as he unfolds his clothing. "We've left the black heart of Moria far behind, and yet you preferred to retreat within yourself. Even in the splendour of Lothlorien, you've not yet found peace. How would Merry find the strength to exorcise his own demons if he were forced to bring you from your own gloom?"

"I've not asked him to bring me from my gloom," I murmur as the importance of Legolas' words dawns upon me. "But I believe I understand. Finally."

We dress in silence as the water upon our skin dries quickly in the sun. Although neither of us speaks, the solitude is comforting, and for the first time since I entered Lorien, I truly note the beauty and serenity surrounding me. Though still wounded, the grief seems much less exacting in the regal peace of the Elvish dwelling.

"Peregrin, you must go to him," Legolas finally states after donning his final vestment. He shoulders quiver and his bow, adding, "You've the best chance of reaching him, I would suspect."

"I will go to him," I return as he turns from me and sidles towards the path leading back to camp. My breath catches in my throat as he moves to leave, so many words to him spinning unspoken within my mind. "Legolas! Wait!"

He spins in place to face me, wordlessly questioning. I dash up the worn earth to close the distance between us, and he waits for my legs -– infinitely shorter than his own -– to catch up.

Looking up at him, all that I might have said to him dies fast upon my lips. I swallow and whisper a simple, "Thank you."

A faint smile touches the edges of his lips, and Legolas places a hand upon my shoulder. "Peregrin, thank _you_," he adds emphatically before returning to his path, leaving me bewildered in his regal wake.

...tbc...


	3. Tindoome

"Drowning in Amber"  
by s1ncer1ty

Notes: Nope, no slash yet, unless you want it to be. I like slash, just not tremendously so with Merry and Pippin (though I can in some circumstances see Frodo and Sam, but that's not really relevant here). I don't want to limit reader interpretations, though. To me, as I'm writing it, it strikes me as very close intimacy, without sexuality. This one's for you, eretria -- Merry angst! Hooray!

Musical Inspiration: 'Don't Cry' by Guns 'n Roses

Disclaimer: Still not mine. Alas, alack, etc.

_~*~ Tindoome : Meriadoc : Parth Galen ~*~_

_"Don't you cry tonight.  
There's a heaven above you, baby."  
~ Guns 'n Roses_

It's been many a night since I've lain beside Merry, yet this evening I find myself yearning for his warm weight against my back as the abyss of dreams gives way to a restless awakening. Within my ears, I hear my heart thudding ever so swiftly faster in a hard, steady thrum, and I lie still for some time before I realize that a return to sleep will be a long time coming without my best mate at my side.

Despite the inherent dangers, Parth Galen is peacefully still at night, set beneath a canopy of thousands of stars and the full face of an ever-watching moon. I pull my cloak fast about my shoulders, wriggling to unknot the tension in my back and shoulders, and I climb to my feet. I take great pains to be even quieter than normal as I pad across the makeshift camp in search of my cousin.

I pass each member of our dwindling Fellowship, each in various states of slumber –- Aragorn, sitting up propped against a tree, the hood of his cloak drawn atop his eyes; Boromir, restless, as if plagued by disturbing dreams; Gimli, a massive ball of leather and helm curled upon the ground; Samwise, lying protectively close to Frodo, who himself twists and whimpers in an unending web of nightmares and Ring-whispered temptations. Legolas does not rest, but instead maintains a patrolling watch of the wood for any sign of Orc activity, and although his back is to me as I pass, he knows of my presence.

There is space made in the camp, a bare portion of unspoiled ground, in the very unlikely event that Gandalf might return.

I turn away with a rising lump in my throat, but any tears have long since been spent for Gandalf. Right now, what aches more is my inability to find Merry among the huddled sleepers. With a deep exhalation of breath, too shallow to be a true sigh, I twine my thumbs in the loops of my suspenders and move down the worn path leading away from camp, towards the river. 

My tracks take me through the break of forest towards the makeshift dock where we'd moored our boats earlier in the day. The night is peaceful, the stars shimmering like fireflies against a full-moon backdrop, yet at the same time it is unbearably lonely.

Ultimately pausing beside the water, I find through the thin stream of moonlight that trickles through the treetops a still, huddled figure sitting atop an overturned Elvish boat. My footsteps make no noise whatsoever as I pad atop the packed riverbed clay, and though I strain to see through the darkness, I instantly recognize the shape of my cousin. I do not suppress the smile that comes to my lips, although I approach him with undue caution -- who's to tell whether or not he's still angry after all these days?

"Merry?" I whisper aloud, once I've soundlessly closed the physical distance between us.

Merry turns towards me in a sudden movement, his eyes blazing with apprehension. Even in the darkness I can see his right hand jerk to the hilt of the sword at his waist.

"Merry, it's just me. Peregrin."

His tongue snakes out, wetting his lips, and he releases his breath in a heavy sigh, hand falling limp against his leg. "Pippin. It's not nice to go sneaking up on people like that. What if I'd drawn my sword upon you?"

"Then perhaps you'd have run me through if I didn't jump out of the way in quick enough time." I offer a very faintly joking smirk and a nudge to his shoulder, but Merry takes it in almost uncharacteristic anger.

"Don't speak like that, Pippin!" he snaps, recoiling his shoulder from beneath my searching hand.

I unfurl the edge of my cloak beneath me and simply join Merry's side, keeping sufficient distance between our two bodies atop the night-chilled wood. "I was hardly serious, Merry," I explain. "I doubt you'd have run me through. Your wits and my feet are both fast enough to avoid such pain."

"Nonetheless, you shouldn't do such foolish things. That way neither of us would be inconvenienced," Merry states awkwardly, settling his arms upon his knees. He turns away from me and stares moodily out across the great expanse of water.

"Merry...?"

"Don't talk right now, Pippin. Please, not another word," he interrupts, pleading.

My cousin's unease is almost tangible, emanating from him in dark, strained shivers of confused anger. I fall silent at his request, my fingers finding a break in the wood upon the overturned boat and holding fast there. I keep my eyes downcast, and I know that he will speak in due time. But it must be of his own volition.

And after a long, drawn out, uncomfortable silence, he finally does speak, words drawn out in labored reluctance. It is a struggle -- perhaps even one so intelligent as Merry cannot find the proper words to express the extent of his grief.

"Oh, Pip," he whispers. "I'd never truly realized it until now, coming as far as we have upon this journey. We're small. We're so very small." His confession is painful, intensely so. I can no longer bear to look away.

"Well, of course we're small, when you look at such strong Men as Strider and Boromir," I remark in a soft, offhanded voice, joking in hopes of taking his mind from his grief. "Even other Men pale in comparison to those two."

"Yes, I know that," he returns testily, and the teasing light in my eyes dwindles. "Don't you see, Pip, up until recently, I'd thought us to be normal in size! That the rest of the world was sized to accommodate us, and that Men were the anomalies for being so unbearably large. I realize now that _we're_ the ones who are abnormal, for being so _small_." The last several words are said in a pleading whisper that almost breaks my heart.

"Merry, Merry," I murmur, sliding an arm across his back. He swipes at his eyes, pushing away dark glimmers of tears or amber, and struggles to regain composure.

"Why hadn't we listened to Elrond, Pip?" he whispers in a strangled voice. "Do you think, if there were ones larger to take our place, that _he_ would still be with us?"

I know he speaks of Gandalf, and my heart aches at the allusion to the old wizard. The memory of his stern voice filters through my thoughts, as do his bushy eyebrows and his delicate, Man-shod feet. "I don't know, Merry. But we can't wind back time, now can we?" I murmur, reiterating the lesson that Legolas had taught me so keenly in Lothlorien.

"What if we weren't so _small?"_ Merry looks up, dark-swimming eyes desperately straining to find mine in the darkness.

I cannot see the blackening tide that pulls at him, but I know, either from intuition or from experience, that it tugs fast at his ankles and at the edge of his cloak. But I will not let him go under. I will not let him succumb as I had to this great anguish made tangible. I wrap my arms around my cousin and hold him aloft.

"So what if we're small, eh, Merry lad?" I murmur fast into his ear. "Are we lesser for it? Does it make us any more or less significant? We've always known that there was a vast world outside of the Shire. I'd just never thought we'd ever have to leave. If we'd known what lay ahead, would we ever have wanted to?" I understand, and I sympathize –- I truly do. You do not come away without scars after watching your worldview shatter to millions of crystal shards before your very eyes.

"Oh, Pip," Merry mumbles, his voice no longer sounding quite so choked. He pulls away, and I see the grief in his eyes replaced with grim determination. "If I survive to return to the Shire, I shall never set a single foot outside its borders again."

I know it is a brash statement, for Merry -- like myself -- possesses the 'unhobbitlike' love for travel and for great adventure. I find myself saying nothing in response, allowing instead a suffocating silence to blanket my thoughts, for I would not deny Merry his sadness; yet I would also not wish to see him regret his words later down the road. And perhaps he, too, knows it's folly, for he lets the silence of the moment hang like a stifling veil between us.

"Merry," I finally manage to whisper. "Have we been too long in the company of Men that we must adopt their mannerisms?"

He turns to me, brows knitted in an unexpected contemplation. "Perhaps we are, Pip."

"I can't say that I particularly like it."

Amazingly, Merry manages a weak laugh as he shakes his head. "I do not like it either. If this is what Men must feel within their hearts all the time, then perhaps I should prefer to be so small."

"I don't believe it's something that all Men feel all the time," I return. "There is a time and a place for despair. It's just that Men feel this despair too keenly. They cannot look beyond their grief to see the beauty in the present."

Merry leans back against his hands and points towards the sky where a million tiny shards of diamonds look down upon us. "I recall an old saying that my Da' used to say to me when I was a child. 'If you weep because the day has passed, your tears will not let you see the stars.'"

Looking at Merry out of the corner of my eye, I give him a quiet, sincere smile. "Yes, I do believe I'm through with crying."

"As am I, Pip," he says, shifting forward and slinging a companionable arm across my back. "Perhaps not for good, since we've so far to go before we reach peace at the end of our road. But for now, I am done."

"I find it amazing that you, the magnificent Meriadoc Brandybuck, actually weep," I state with a quick laugh.

"More than I'll ever let on. Yet still less than you, crybaby," Merry returns with a smile and a nudge to my shoulder.

"How I've missed you, Merry," I suddenly whisper, feeling a deep -- but tearless -- well of emotion stirring within me, choking the strain of my voice.

Merry does not respond, and instead cradles me in the warm comfort of his arm, until the radiance of his companionship weighs upon my eyes, and I shut them against a lulling swirl of shimmering thoughts. I hardly realize I've begun to doze until he shakes my shoulders lightly, and we crawl to the ground beside the overturned boat. With heavy eyes and sleep-fumbling fingers, I help him untangle both my cloak and his own before curling up in a heap beside him.

We are tangled, but comfortable, two great, warm hobbits beneath a vast sky. And tomorrow may bring a time for fighting, or for further grief; but for now there are no tears obscuring the stars, and there is no great tide of amber threatening to drag us below its depths. There is only the sound of the river lapping gently against the shore, of vigilant Elf-feet made deliberately audible, and of Merry's gentle, comforting breath in my hair. 

...owari...

(Chapter title translations from Quenya: Quorin - drowning; Nienaite - in tears; Tindoome - starry twilight)


End file.
